Breakfast With Tim Cook

Andrew Ross Sorkin, writing for the NYT’s Dealbook:

As Mr. Cook’s breakfast arrived — two scrambled egg whites, crispy bacon (they didn’t have his preferred turkey bacon), sugar-free cereal with unsweetened almond milk — he described his week, punctuated by a visit the night before to the L.B.J. Presidential Library, the museum of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“One of the things that hits you,” he said, is “all of the major acts, legislation, that happened during just his presidency.” His eyes widened as he listed some: “You have the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Act, you have Medicare, you have Medicaid, you have several national parks, you have Head Start, you have housing discrimination, you have jury discrimination.”

“Regardless of your politics,” he continued, “you look at it and say, ‘My gosh.’”

I feel like this is Tim Cook being Tim Cook. He is not the guy who calls up a New York Times columnist and tells him he’s “a slime bucket who gets most of his facts wrong”, and he has never pretended to be. Cook is, at least in public, preternaturally calm, and a serious student of history. Without being overtly political, Cook seems to be stepping into a leadership role that is above and beyond Apple.

★ Thursday, 31 August 2017